


seasalt cyclone

by riptidewaves



Series: wake everyone up (shake it off!) [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mutants, Insecurity, M/M, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 03:00:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20400568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riptidewaves/pseuds/riptidewaves
Summary: In his sixth year, Mark discovers two things:1. Jaemin has very good, very effective puppy eyes only the most heartless of the heartless can ignore; and2. they're both in love with Lee Donghyuck





	seasalt cyclone

**Author's Note:**

> outline for the main story has been giving me such a headache lately, so i wrote this small piece in the hopes that it might trigger an onslaught of ideas :D 
> 
> (it didn't but it _did_ make me feel very <3 inside). enjoy this small insight to how things were in the past, before everything happened!

Mark had been scrubbing his body after a particularly grueling sparring match with the others in his year when he’s suddenly struck with the jarring thought that he _cannot _live without Donghyuck.

He was just idly wondering if he could invite Donghyuck out in the library — being in Donghyuck’s vicinity automatically made him more focused because he’d rather do literally anything else than look at his face, so he could get a lot of work done with just Donghyuck sitting there and doing Donghyuck things — when his brain does its Thinking Thing and provides him with the truly nerve-wracking, bone-rattling, chilling revelation that he had fallen in love with his best friend. 

His first thought: _ah__ shit_. So there _was_ actually a reason he always idly thinks about Donghyuck whenever he's in the showers. 

His second thought: no one can know. _No one. _

This secret will stay with him until they lower him into his grave and everyone else is too busy crying (well, he hopes they'll be crying — wait. That just means he basically wants his friends and family to be sad, okay, Mark, _not cool_) to notice the '_I love Donghyuck <3_' so obviously emblazoned on his heart like a tattoo a drunk, love-adled teenager had stamped on their chest one lonely night as a tramp stamp. _Property of Lee Donghyuck_, the tramp stamp would announce.

Nope, no, too humiliating, too embarrassing. This is one secret that Mark will lock inside his own chest, never to be seen again. He'll defend the entrance like a vicious troll whose primary pleasure is scaring random passersby out of their own wits, before retreating to its own dark, damp cave where it'll lurk until another unfortunate civilian wanders past. Yes, that sounds like a plan. 

The “secret” lasted for three cursed seconds.

Because three seconds later, Jaemin bursts into his shower with a perturbed expression on his face.

“Mark,” he says, placatingly, “stop screaming — it’s just me. I read your thoughts — sorry — but I just couldn’t help it, your thoughts were getting so loud, it was kind of bothering me a little. But — both of us — with Donghyuck — what do we do?”

Mark, screeching, trying to preserve his honor by curling into himself and hauling himself towards the shower curtain to hide his body — his temple of doom — does not dignify this with a reply. It’s one thing to have one of your best friends walk in on your mind _ and _in the shower, it’s another thing entirely when said best friend confronts him with the Revelation-That-Must-Not-Be-Named. 

Wait. '_Both of us_' Jaemin had said...does that mean...

Jaemin looks at him, eyes drooping with sympathy. It doesn't help that Mark didn't bother turning the shower off, so it's still spitting water into both him _and_ Jaemin, who's still fully clad in their crisp white uniforms, complete with the blazer. He looks pitiful, like a cute puppy unfairly left in the rain. “I’m sorry. Being in love with Donghyuck has its merits, of course. But still...it does kind of suck."

And — well. Mark can’t disagree with _ that_. He's been "officially" in love with He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named for a grand total of one minute and it's already the most stressful he's ever felt in his entire life.

He’s called Donghyuck a devil in all the languages he knows, and for good reason. The shape-shifting demonic _imp_ (not really a demonic imp but close enough) had gotten him into _ so much shit _ and the terrible thing is that Mark always, _always_ lets him. Because, well, he’s kind of an idiot when it comes to Donghyuck, but, truthfully...getting to do all those things with Donghyuck...makes him feel freer than he’s ever felt. 

Donghyuck makes him feel like _ him_. Mark Lee in his raw form, uncut and unpreserved, without all of the filter systems his brain makes him go through. And it’s sort of nice, to finally be himself after what seemed like an eternity of blind obedience and dutiful behavior he had associated with everyone around him. Everyone always wanted something from everyone, and Mark had learned from an early age that giving whatever people expected of him was the easy solution — less bothersome that way.

The people were happy, and Mark — well. Seeing others happy had been enough. It doesn’t matter if he sometimes overextended himself to the brink of exhaustion in order to meet their demands. It didn’t matter.

Until Donghyuck. 

Donghyuck had come like a hurricane in all his tempest glory, promises of tornadoes in his eyes, sweeping everything up in his way into a spiral arrangement of his very own thunderstorms. Being with Donghyuck was like standing directly in the central clear eye, whilst watching everything revolve around them in a whirling wind of chaos and commotion.

It was like a constant breath of zephyr in his face, like standing on a cliff overlooking the ocean, with the salty taste of the sea breeze surrounding him. The only place that was safe in a land of ever-present spawning tornadoes that whipped up winds of fury in its wake.

“I know,” Jaemin softly intervenes, cutting into his trails of thoughts that seemed to always go into disarray whenever He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named is mentioned. “He makes me feel that way too…”

Jaemin was thoroughly soaked now; his clothes, which were always so pristinely ironed and spotless, were now soaked to the bone, the clothes clinging to his body as rivulets of water ran down his face. It made him look softer somehow, more approachable. Not like Na Jaemin, one of the top students of their year, hailed by some as the most proficient telepath of the century; also exceptionally good-looking on top of everything else.

Now, he was just Jaemin. Their Jaemin. Goofy, greasy Jaemin who had obscure interests and a sense of humor nobody really fully understands, but they still love and respect him for it anyway.

Jaemin sighs softly, gaze cast in a faraway place.

Mark knew that look well, he realizes with a jolt.

He had often seen Jaemin do the exact same thing whenever the rest of them were together, when, sometimes, he catches Jaemin staring at Donghyuck for just a beat too long, and then it’s gone in an instant.

It was a look of lovelorn...wistfulness, of looking at something he can never have. Not exactly the kind of look Mark would imagine on Jaemin, who had a steady stream of hopeless admirers trailing behind him wherever he went. 

“You’re one of my best friends,” Mark manages to choke out. Making people happy, that was what he’s always been taught to do. If he hurts himself in the process, then that’s fine. A puncture in his heart wouldn’t matter, not if two cherished friends find happiness in each other. 

“He’s your best friend,” Jaemin points out, eyes filled with a tumult of emotions Mark doesn’t dare decipher. 

_Make other people happy_, he reminds himself. Mark opens his mouth to say — something, but then —

Donghyuck's image flashes in his head for an instant. 

“...yeah,” Mark agrees, swallowing. 

“When we were kids, he made me promise to never read his mind,” Jaemin says suddenly, when the silence between them had drawn on for too long, and the tendrils of mist had evened out enough for them to distinguish each other's features. “So I never did. Something happened between us, and…” a shadow passes over his face, and he makes a sad noise. “I never want to see his face like that again, so I never will. Use my powers on him, that is.”

“What did you do?” Mark asks tentatively. 

Jaemin fixes him with a look of such intensity it made his breath catch.

“I just wanted him to see himself the way I saw him,” he says, “and...he must have seen something — something he didn’t like, so — so he made me promise to never go into his mind...he says that it’s not right — for people like me to be inside his mind,” he breaks their eye contact, eyes suspiciously glassy. He sniffles a little. “He doesn’t like seeing himself in any other way except his, and his mind, Mark...he sees himself as something so...unnatural. So grotesque…”

Donghyuck was a shapeshifter, able to manipulate his DNA at will to become anything or anyone at all. While this enabled him to do literally any prank ever, it also meant he could hide himself well under an indefinite amount of masks. In all his six years of knowing Donghyuck, Mark had only ever seen his natural form once. 

Donghyuck was...beautiful. He’d been golden all over; his hair was curled in flaxen waves, gold was woven in his body, like Midas’ own painstakingly handcrafted masterpiece. His eyes, though, were another story entirely. They were blazing fires of oscillations, like the sunspots in the sun, concentrations of intense magnetic field fluxes that herald the coming of solar flares.

Mark had had only a glimpse, because as soon as Donghyuck caught sight of him, he’d immediately shifted into his "normal" body.

It led to their biggest fight ever. It lasted for half a year, starting with summer. Mark had never known such a frosty summer could exist, but summers without Donghyuck had felt like a frozen wasteland of nothing.

Truthfully, Mark never really understood what exactly they fought about in the first place, until today —

“That’s why he never stays in one form for too long,” Mark breathes. 

Jaemin nods, eyes glazing over. “Donghyuck and I... we’ve known each other since we were children. Mark, it doesn’t even matter to me who has his heart. I just want him to believe that he’s truly beautiful. And...if I’m being honest...being with you makes him different. He smiles so brightly when he’s with you, did you know that? I can’t read his mind, but I _do_ know him. He’s the only one who can change his mind, but....I think he’s getting there. With you.”

“I guess this is me begging you to not break his heart," Jaemin finishes, a defeated little smile adorning his lips. 

Mark exhales shakily, reaching out to grasp both of Jaemin’s hands in his. He stares him directly in the eyes, hoping he can convey everything he’s feeling with just that look alone. “I won’t,” he promises firmly. "I would never."

* * *

Two months later, Donghyuck breaks his heart.

Two minutes after Donghyuck had made sure his heart shattered into a million tiny jagged shards, Mark has his memory wiped clean. He doesn't remember anything at all, except perhaps an empty feeling in his chest.


End file.
